Self-Esteem?

What does Scripture tell us about ’self-esteem’?

Hints:

• A specific word search for ’self-esteem’ won’t get you much, but try it anyway. The poor results of a word search is still instructive.
• Consider what Scripture has to say about the ‘human condition’ apart from Christ.
• For an example of how someone who is growing in their closeness/relationship with Christ prceives himself, look at Paul and what he said about himself.
• Consider what Christ had to say about ’self’.
• Compare what modern psychology’s elevation of ’self-esteem’ to near idol stature to the Biblical perspective

Please discuss.

Amazing Love

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He who digs in a gold mine sweats – Thomas Watson

“Christ’s love compels us!” 2 Corinthians 5:14

Love to Christ made Paul labor more than all the other apostles. A man will only strive for that which he loves. Why are men so eager in their pursuit after gold—but because they love it? Love causes delight, and delight causes diligence. Love is like oil to the wheels. Get love for Christ and piety—and you will never be weary; you will count those the best hours which are spent with God. When a man has warmed himself by this fire, he is fittest for holy work.

He who digs in a gold mine sweats—yet love for the gold makes his labor delightful.

Vain Philosophy

The vain philosophy of the world will always contain these 5 elements:

1) An attestation (or acquiescence) to the Bible as a helpful book, but not the inspired Word of God (although Catholicism will attest to the Bible as being divine, yet their tradition is placed upon an equal, and most of the time, greater level than the Bible–the church decides what the Word means.)

2) The denial of the Biblical Gospel message of Christ’s vicarious substitutionary atonement on behalf of his elect people which is limited in scope but not its power.

3) The denial of the sinner as morally corrupt, dead in sins, without any ability to will spiritual good, or turn to Christ to repent.

4) The denial of God’s absolute sovereignty in all areas of the created order.

5) A deranged or warped view (or no view) of God in general.

– From “A Puritan’s Mind”

A Tale of Two Sons – Galatians 4

Question for the Blogged Bible Study

Two sons born to Abraham, one son strictly from a union of flesh representing the law, and the son of promise representing the Messiah to come. God even referred to Isaac as Abraham’s only son.

“Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.”" – Gen 22:2

I looked up seven translations/versions of the Bible and found thal all but one (The Message) used the term only son, referring to Isaac. Abraham had two sons, and God actually conferred a blessing on Ishmael after he was cast out of Abraham’s camp, along with his mother.

What might God’s reference to Isaac as Abraham’s only son signify to us as believers? I don’t think Is there a principal there that we can apply to our lives?

And by the way, I’m still working on it, in case you think I would be asking questions for which I thought I had an answer.

Abraham’s Faith and Jesus

Another Blogging Bible Study (BBS) question from Galatians

It is by faith we are saved, not through works of the law – Paul’s teaching to everyone, everywhere he preached. There is perhaps nothing more clearly taught in scripture. Abraham believed God and his faith was counted/accounted/credited/reckoned to him as righteousness. Christ had not yet appeared on the scene.

Yet Jesus said:

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6

and

“Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” – John 3:18

The ‘inclusivists’ among us will say that as long as one believes in God, or a creator/supreme being he/she will eventually spend eternity in bliss. They sometimes use Abraham as biblical ‘proof’ of their claim. They will even say that Christ died for ’sin’ in a very broad sense, so that is it not necessary to have ever heard of Christ, or the name of the Son of God. One needs only believe in a supreme creator/being – they are still going ‘through’ Christ.

Here’s the question:

Did Abraham somehow believe in Christ before Christ was born?

If your answer is yes, what was it that God told Abraham and Abraham believed, that might provide a clue as to how that is possible?

Dan

The Divine Paradox

God is completely sovereign over the affairs of men, including their eternal destiny, AND man is responsible and accountable for the decision to believe in or reject Christ as Lord and Savior.

Scripture teaches both. You can accept that or not – no spoon-feeding on the matter provided here. If you don’t like the idea (and most folks probably won’t), even quoting directly from scripture will be labeled as just ‘my opinion’. Check it out for yourself. This writer hopes that your profession of Christ (if you are a Christ follower) would drive you into Scripture to see exactly what God has revealed to us about the matter, and having done that, just believe it and leave the mystery of it all to God’s secret will.

In the end you will believe what you want to believe, as do we all. The difference between Christians and non-Christians is that somewhere inside of the person who has trusted in Christ for salvation, there is a change in what we want to believe – there’s a new desire to believe what God reveals in scripture, even if we can’t wrap our human brains around it.

Are We All God’s Children?

Good question. Some folks will tell you that every person who enters the world is a child of God by virtue of having been born. Others will maintain that every person is not a child of God, that only those who behave a certain way or believe a certain way. If we are honest in wanting to know the truth of the matter, we can turn to Scripture and find out God’s answer to this question. After all, He wrote the book.

Most certainly, we are all God’s creation and God loves His creation:

“For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities–all things were created through him and for him.” – Col 1:16 

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” – John 3:16

Those who would tell you that we are all God’s children base their assertion on the fact that we are all within God’s creation and therefore must be His children. So what does Scripture specifically about children of God? We turn to the Gospel of John, Chapter 1, and find the apostle saying of Christ:

“But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” – John 1:12-13

I encourage you to read from verse one of the same chapter, if you doubt that John was speaking about Christ. I also encourage you to read Romans 8:16 and 1 John 3:1-10. While the above passage from John Chapter 1 should be sufficient to answer the question at hand, if you believe we are all God’s children, the enemy of your soul will immediately invade your mind to cause you to doubt the words on the page. for that reason, I encourage to read John’s Gospel, as well as the additional passages mentioned above.

I intentionally didn’t quote more than a few verses so that you would be encouraged to search the Bible for yourself, and allow God to speak directly to you through the Holy Spirit. It’s kind of hard to argue with God

Evangelism: Sovereign Calling

“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”–John 1:12-13

There is another and worse evil which springs from this basic failure to grasp the radical difference between the natures of the two worlds. It is the habit of languidly “accepting” salvation as if it were a small matter and one wholly in our hands. Men are exhorted to think things over and “decide” for Christ, and in some places one day each year is set aside as “Decision Day,” at which time people are expected to condescend to grant Christ the right to save them, a right which they have obviously refused Him up to that time. Christ is thus made to stand again before men’s judgment seat; He is made to wait upon the pleasure of the individual, and after long and humble waiting is either turned away or patronizingly admitted. By a complete misunderstanding of the noble and true doctrine of the freedom of the human will salvation is made to depend perilously upon the will of man instead of upon the will of God.

However deep the mystery, however many the paradoxes involved, it is still true that men become saints not at their own whim but by sovereign calling.

A. W. Tozer – The Pursuit of Man, pp. 37-38

You Raise Me Up – Selah

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